I nod, the weight of her loving words swirling in my chest.
“This isn’t about whether you love Dax more than Mitch, or vice versa. You either love Dax or you don’t—it’s that simple, sweetheart.”
I blow out a frustrated breath because she’s right. But there’s still so much nagging at me. “I feel like I’m betraying Mitch.”
“I can understand that.” After a short pause, she says, “But he wouldn’t want you to be alone forever. You’re young. You deserve to be happy, even if it is with someone else.”
I shake my head, rubbing my temples as we get this out in the open. “Mitch used to ask if there was anything more than friendship between Dax and me.”
She faces me again, her expression open and loving and understanding, nothing like the shameful feelings forming a knot in my stomach.
“I constantly reassured him that Dax and I had only ever been friends before Mitch and I even met. I laughed him off as I did everyone who asked or assumed. There was a time when I thought we could be more, but with everything that happened, it started to feel like a fantasy. We were always friends. Now, there’s so much more between us.” I laugh at myself, kicking at the ground. “Listen to me. I don’t even make any sense.”
“You’re making perfect sense.” She places her warm hands over mine the way she did when I got rejected from some of my top colleges. “I know it can feel like a sense of betrayal by being with Dax, but let me ask you this. What does your heart think? You can’t control your heart. It tells you what you need to know simply by the way it beats. If it speeds up when you’re around Dax, if it flutters and changes course, you just have to go with it. Follow your heart wherever it takes you.”
My breath is knocked out of me. That’s exactly what happens with Dax. My heart beats in my chest like it’s rattling a cage.
A cage I’ve built around it after it broke.
With Mitch’s cancer and his death, my heart was broken.
But it broke years ago too, when Dax kissed me and didn’t do it again.
Now, here we are. Over fifteen years later, and not only has he kissed me, but he’s worshipped my bare body in ways I never imagined. Like he completes me.
Like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
“By the dreamy daze on your face, I’d say my job here is done.” There’s a knowing gleam in her eyes as my mom pats my hands.
Again, I blow out a breath. “What about Jacob? I don’t want to upset him,” I say weakly. At this point, I’m only reaching for straws, and it’s because I’m scared of how strong my feelings for Dax are.
She cups my cheek. “When I married Andrew, were you upset?”
“No, I wanted you to be… happy.” I whisper the last word, understanding dawning as I place my hand over hers and lean my cheek into it.
“Now, listen to me. You can’t keep making excuses. People who fall in love once are so damn lucky. But twice? Falling in love twice is as rare as lightning striking the same place twice. You can’t predict it. You can’t stop it. You just revel in the beauty of it.” She peers across the lawn at Andrew with a wistful twinkle in her eye, then steps toward him.
Her words strike a chord in me like I’m the dusty piano in the corner of our old living room. One strike of a key brings it back to life.
“Where are you going?” I rasp.
“I’m reveling,” she calls over her shoulder as she reaches Andrew and plants a kiss on his lips, uncaring about the people around us.
It makes me smile.
And when he squeezes her hand, a joy spreads throughout my chest like a flower blooming.
I know exactly what to do and who I need to see.
It’s time I start reveling too.
Twenty-Four
Dax
“You’re not answering my calls.”
I look up from my desk and find Clara in a flowy dress and boots. She’s holding a vase of various colored flowers I don’t know the names of. Grinning, I wave around the room. “As you can see, duty calls.”
“Your own special kind of Call of Duty,” she muses, then slaps her palm to her forehead. “I’m feeling every bit like a single mom of an eleven-year-old boy, complete with bad video game jokes.”
“I like it. A lot.” My grin widens.
“I stopped by Daisy’s flower stand earlier and thought I’d bring you this to brighten up the place.” She steps into my office and sets the vase on my bookcase along the wall. Her gait is confident, much like the Clara I once knew. The Clara I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again after last year.
She’s as breathtaking as a bird stretching its wings to fly.
I come around the desk and cross my arms over my chest, wrinkling my white coat. Leaning on the edge of the desk, it looks like I’m about to give her a consultation.
“No jeans today.”
“I’m sorry?”
She gives me a once-over. “You’re in a button-up and slacks.”
“Haven’t had time for laundry, and these were my only clean pants.” I shift. Her hungry gaze does funny things to me. “From the looks of it, you like what you see?”
She nods slowly, licking her lips.
I pause to study her flushed cheeks and dilated pupils. “You can tell a lot about a person by their heartbeat.”
She tilts her head to the side like she’s pondering my statement. “I’ve heard that before.”
“I predict your heart rate to be ninety beats per minute and rising.”
She nods again, lifting her eyes to meet mine head-on.
I push off the desk and stand in front of her, sweeping her hair over her shoulder.
“What if I lean in close? Like this?” My nose barely grazes her jawline, and sparks fly between us. “I’d say your heart rate is over one hundred now.”
“Sounds about right.” Her eyelids flutter closed. “Would you like to check me out, Doctor?”
“I’d like nothing more.” I trail kisses up her neck, squeezing her hips, inhaling her floral perfume. It’s intoxicating. It reminds me I have a life outside these sterile walls.
Her body relaxes into mine, and I fight my urge to groan.
To bend her over my desk.
To watch her come undone for me—it’s heady, the way she responds to me.
“I, for one”—I move my lips against her neck, letting her feel my hot breath there—“am loving our new friendship.” Cupping the back of her head with my hand, I capture her lips with mine for a kiss that’s better than the last.
Every time with Clara is better, because it’s one more time I get to have her like this after so many years of yearning.
Gut-wrenching yearning.
I can kiss her now. Touch her. Hold her.
I’m getting to know her in a different way, and I crave it. I crave it all from her.
My phone rings, pulling us apart.
I sigh as I walk to the phone. “Dr. Pearson,” I answer.
“Maxine Lowe is ready for you.”
“I’ll be right out.”
Running both my hands through my hair, I turn to Clara, who straightens and walks toward me. She fixes my collar, then smooths my white coat down. The small gesture makes me imagine what it would be like to share a bedroom. For her to help me get dressed in the mornings. To crawl into the same bed at night.